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WHAT PItODL'CED THE AMERIMN REVOlliTIOX. 



ORATION 



DELIVERED AT 



S-A.C3t--H.A.I=L:BOrt, KT. ^T-, 



ON THE 



mh @F JiLY, 1875, 



BY 



PUBLISHED BY PERMISSION OF THE AUTH05, 



SAG-HARBOR : 
JOHN H. HUNT. 

1875. 



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THE ORA.TIO]Sr. 



In the history of the past there has been no sentiment more general than 
the desire of every race or tribe to perpetuate the remembrance of the events 
that distinguish them as a sejiai-ate people. Before the art of writing was in- 
vented the rude cairn that marked the site of a decisive battle, or the primitive 
ballad that preserved its incidents, attest how early and how deeply this f eeUng 
was implanted, and as civilization advanced, and a knowledge of the arts sup- 
plied other means of gratifying this natural instinct, it found expression in the 
epic poem, in the celebration of the anniversary days of heroes by libations, 
sacriiices, and the crowning of their tombs with garlands — as in Greece ; or by 
the religious observance of periods of national deliverance such as the Jewish 
passover ; or by the erection of stately monuments or memorial inscriptions, 
like the obelisks of Egj'^pt, or the sc\ilptured halls of Ninevah. 

Among the rigorous laws of Draco, so severe that they were said to have 
been written in blood, there was one denoting how important this early law- 
giver deemed it to perpetuate in the memory of the people their national 
events, and the personages or heroes connected with them. Let, it, said this 
enactment, be a sacred and inviolable law to pay public homage to the Gods 
and to the national heroes. And in enjoining the seven days annual celebra- 
tion of the deliverance of the Jews, how earnest is the language of Moses. 
And this day shall be unto you for a memorial, for in this self same day have 
I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt and ye shall therefore keep it 
as a feast to the Lord throughout your generaiions — Ye shall keeji it a feast, 
l>y an ordinance forever. 

. For ninety-nine years the American people have commemorated with national 
rejoicings the annual return of the day from which they date their com- 
mencement as a nation. Mrs. Trollope, who could find little to commend in 
American institutions or manners, was struck with the effect which the return 
of this day produced. After remarking that a di'eary coldness and want of 
enthusiasm, was one of the greatest defects of the American character, she 
says, that on the Fourth of July however, the hearts of the people seem to 



i 

awaken from a sleep of SG-t days and that we then become high-sjiirited, gay, 
animated, social, generous, and hberal. That the women have httle to do with 
the i^ageantry, the splendor, or the gaiety of the day, but setting aside this 
defect, it is, she says, a glorious sight to see a jubilee so heartfelt as this, were 
it not for the bad taste they exhibit by uttering annual orations, an exhibition 
of bad taste, upon the present occasion, for which Mr. Cai-penter and the com- 
mittee are responsible, who invited me here and afforded me the opportunity 
to jjerpetrate it. 

Mrs. Trollope condemns this custom of commemorating the day in all parts 
of the country by the dehvery of an oration as in very bad taste, becavise 
such productions, she says, abound in invariable abuse of the mother cotmtry. 
She could scarcely expect the orator, after the reading of the wrongs, injuries 
and usurpations that are recited in the Declaration of Independence to enter- 
tain his audience by praising the mother country, for the part she then acted, 
or to abstain from any reference to it, for fear he might speak disrespectfully 
of her. A 4th of July oration would not be a 4th of July oration without 
dwelling upon the event which the celebration of the day was intended to 
commemorate, and upon the present occasion, I shall, as eminently appropri 
ate, in view of the near approach of the centennial, devote the whole of my 
address to the American Eevolution. 

It is not as the effort of a people to shake off a government that had gi'own 
burdensome and oppressive that the American Revolution has its chief signifi- 
cance. Regarded in that light, history is not unfruitful of examples, in which 
a people have overthrown a tyrannical government, or resisted the attempt to 
impose one, and some of those instances have surpassed it in military achieve- 
ments. Indeed the love of mihtary glory, or the desire for a separate nation- 
ality had very little to do with the causes which produced it. 

So far as respects the appeal to arms, it was an act of necessity and not of 
choice. An act of necessity after the failure of petitions, supi^hcation and re- 
monstrances, which was undertaken with a high sense of moral accountabiUty 
and under deep reUgious convictions. "If we mean not to abandon," said 
the eloquent Henry, uttering the sentiment of the time "if we mean not to 
abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged and which 
we have pledged ourselves never to abandon, we must fight. An appeal to 
arms and the God of Hosts is all that is left us," and this spirit is still more 
clearly indicated in the preamble and resolutions adopted at the convention of 
Delegates assembled at WiUiamsburgh, in Virginia, on the 6th of May, 177G. 
After refen-ing in the preamble to the endeavors that had been made by the 
United Colonies to restore peace and security to America, and to continue un- 
der the British government upon just and liberal terms, and that those endeav- 
ors had produced no other effect, but increased oppressions; they conclude 
their preamble by declaring that they appeal to the searcher of all hearts, for 
the sincerity with which as colonists, they desired to preserve their connection 
with Great Britain, and that they were driven from it only by the eternal law 
of self-preservation. 



The American revolution in its most significant light, is to be regarded as an 
important event in a long series of causes, which led to the gradual devclope- 
nient of ideas that had kept pace with the advance of inteUigence in Europe, 
pre-eminent among which was the belief in the doctrine of political equality. 

It is not as literally expressed in the Declaration of Independence, that all 
men are born equal, for they are not ; on the contrary, they are born unequal 
physically, intellectually and morally. What is meant is that no man is born 
to greater rights under government than any other, and that peculiar privileges 
or exclusive rights, arising from the circumstances of birth, have no founda- 
tion in natural reason, and are not found by human experience to be essential 
to the due institution and successful carrying on of government. 

The circumstances connected with the settlement of North America were 
pecuharly fitted to nourish to maturity this hardy plant of poUtical equality. 
The dignity and necssity of labor among those who had undertaken to convert 
the wilderness into a dwelling place, readily rejected the artificial distinctions 
of European society and brought to the level of individual worth and social 
equality the high bom and the low. The dependence upon individual exertion 
for the supply of natural wants begat simijlicity of manners and reared up a 
sturdy spirit of self-reliance that has never forsaken the American character. 
The knowledge and experience of civilization was harmonised and purified by 
the surrounding influences of nature. 

The boundless magnificence with which their Creator's works were spread 
before the colonists brought them into more extensive communion with na- 
ture than would have been possible in Europe, and freed their minds from 
those restraints which artificial society imposes. In penetrating the depths of 
magnificent forests, in following the course of noble rivers, and in the varied 
life incident to their woodland settlements, they were everywhere near unto 
nature, and it gave them a feeling of indeiaendence and of personal equality, 
which they stamped upon the free institutions they founded. 

When the rising imjiortance and wealth of the colonies began to attract the 
cupidity of the mother country and it was deemed politic to plunder them by 
onerous exactions under pretence of protecting and governing them, they sub- 
mitted to it at first, not from an acquiescence in its justice or legality, bat 
jjartly from a reverence for the land they had left and partly from their inabil- 
ity to resist it. The great principles that had been engrafted ujion them r..^- 
mained as indelibly impressed as ever and when the weight of those exactions 
drove them at last to lie volution, these principles sustained them in every 
vicissitude and rendered them finally triumphant. 

A haj^py variety of circumstances distinctly connected with the settlement 
and i^rogress of each colony contributed to the general advancement of the 
principles of civil liberty. 

Montesquieu has said that every people must be developed according to the 
law of their origin and the origin and developement of the North American 
colonies was a striking proof of the correctness of this maxim. 

Virginia owed its settlement to the greedy cupidity of a London companj', 



and the desire of a few needy adventurers, of worthless character and dissolute 
lives, to repair their shattered fortunes by acquiring treasures in its fertile re- 
gions which the glowing imagination of previous voyagers had led them to ex- 
pect. But the gradual developement of its more valuable agi'icultural riches 
soon attracted to its shores, the good, the virtuous and the wise, and rendered 
it from the industrious pursuits of its people, and the rich productiveness of 
its soil, a weU ordered, thriving and wealthy community. The principles of 
Republicanism kept pace with the progress of the colony. Its first great ef- 
fort was to release itself from the mercenary grasji of the corjDoration thtt 
founded it and advance in the scale of political importance by claiming and 
joyfully accepting the high distinction of a Royal province- 

The act that rendered it the favorite of the Crown, though it generated a 
feeling of loyalty, did not impair the progress of those i^rinciples that were 
rapidly modeling its government, and the Revolution in England in 1040 foiind 
it in the undisturbed enjoyment of the right of suffrage, of an unrestricted 
ti'ade and of an independent colonial Legislature. 

It says much for the political character of Cromwell, that while concentrat- 
ing the energies of England in his own person he did no act to impair the 
rising liberties of America ; on the contrary his administration leaned with 
strong affection to the Puritan settlements of New England and though the 
loyalty of Virginia stimulated by an attachment to the dejiosed monarch caused 
it openly to deny his authority, yet its j^rompt recognition afterwards led to a 
iiU confirmation of former rights and the extension of privileges not previously 
enjoyed. 

The restoration of Charles II. gave an unhajipy impulse to the progi-ess of 
arbitraiy power in Europe and while generally injurious to the whole of the 
colonies, was pai-ticularly fatal to the hberties of Virginia. The unwarrantable 
monopoly of its great staple. Tobacco, by the restrictive clauses of the act of 
Navigation, the establishment of a National church, an irresponsible judiciary, 
a fixed revenue for the crown, the abolition of biennial assemblies and the 
great right of universal suffrage and finally the wanton gift of the M'hole prov- 
ince to a venal adherant of the Court, successively swept away those rights 
that Virginia had dearly cherished and gave riss to the mamoriable rebellion 
awakened and directed by the genius of that fii-st gi-eat apostle of American 
Liberty, the heroic Nathaniel Bacon. It is worthy of note in tracing the prog- 
ress of the Revolution that a hundred years before the Declaration of Inda- 
dence, Virginia was the theatre of a bloody struggle for the same rights that 
afterwards united aU of the colonies in arms. Though with the untimely death 
of Bacon and thebloody execution of his brave companions, the jorospect 
of immediate Uberty vanished, its principles imperishably survived. The 
fires of Smithfield were not more remarkable for counteracting the persecutions 
of religious intolerance, than were the scaffolds upon which the first martyrs 
of Virginian liberty perished, for generating in the soil they desecrated, an un- 
quenchable love of independence. The policy of the mother county in the- 
after progress of the colony, kept the spirit unceasingly active, and when the 



flames of revolution burst, forth, Virginia entered the compact of Sovereign 
states and gave to the sacred cause of indejieudcnce, her whole mind, her 
whole heart, and her whole people. 

Nor were the circumstances connected with the settlement of New England 
less important in generating the principles which gave rise'^ the American 
Kevolution. The devotion to civil and religious liberty that induced the Puri- 
tans to forsake the allurements of civilized life, the homes of their infancy 
and the attachments of their kindred, with no prospect of ever returning, for 
the dangers of a boisterous sea and a home in an inhospitable wilderness was 
an element of character too strong and powerful in its nature not to have pro- 
duced a lasting effect in the land they selected for their resting place. Occu- 
pying an elevated social position in their native country, and uniting the 
refinements of education with the advantages of wealth, they were above 
the ordinary motives of adventure, and i^resented in their settlements the 
moral spectacle of a jjeople nobly sacrificing personal advantages for the tri- 
umph of pi-inciples and the rights of conscience. Political equality, governed, 
influenced and regulated by a deep religious spirit, lay at the base of the httle 
democracies that sprung up from their infant settlements; although this reli"- 
ious spirit was narrow and exclusive. It did not recognize any right of con- 
science in those who differed in i-eligious belief. Verging upon fanaticism it 
tarnished their fame with intolerance, and led them to unwarrantable and 
cruel 23ersecutions, but the natural working of their equalizing system of 
government gi-adually awakened a more tolerant feehng. 

Under the guise of unmeaning charters, their descendants adroitly preserved, 
by shrewd construction and ingenious management, the free institutions be- 
queathed to them, and when the arbitrary course of Great Britain presented 
no alternative but the su ••: euder of institutions transmitted by then* fathej-s, 
their affection for which was nurl ured from childhood and made strong by 
habit, they i^aused not to reflect upon the dangers of death, the horrors of 
wai-, or the treason of rebellion, but entered the contest with a lofty sense of 
moral uprightness and adhered 1o it with a spirit of undying attachment. 

The peaceful settlements of the Quakers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey 
had the happiest effects upon the colonial character. Their bloodless inter- 
course with the natives and their equitable purchase of the ten-itory they en- 
joyed, were in striking contrast with the move violent settlement of other 
colonies. A persecuted peoi^le, not only in the land they bad left, but in that 
they came to adorn, they had learned humility and practiced peace. An abid- 
ing sense of justice and a strong percej^tion of natural rights, guided their i^ath, 
and the innumerable blessings that flow from peace, virtue, and humanity fol- 
lowed in their footsteps ; and though the Quakers as a class, took no part in 
the revolution, nay, openly opposed it, still the principles of equality they in- 
culcated, their simplicity of manners and moral independence had no incon- 
siderable share in bringing about the very event against which they saw fit to 
airay themselves. The workings of the " inner light," as the Quakers beauti- 
fully denominate the soul-searching impulses of benevolence and humanity, 



was destined for deep revelations. The prophetic injunction from Leviticus 
inscribed as early as ITG."), upon that proud old national relic, the bell now 
about to be restored to the steeple of the State House of Philadelphia, "Pro- 
claim hberty throughout the land and unto the ends thereof," was destined to 
be realized by proclaiming a deed from the land of Penn which announced 
that the night of colonial vassalage was past and that the dawn of hberty was 
breaking — that bore to the nations of the earth the fact that the colonies of 
America had severed the ties that bound them to Great Britain, and had irre- 
vocably proclaimed themselves free and independent. 

The mild and tolerant sjDirit that went forth from the Catholic settlement 
in Maryland, gradually diffusing itself and gently counteracting, by the force 
of examjile, the intolerance of New England, purified and strengthened the 
love for civil hberty. 

The Dutch races that peopled the States of New- York and a part of New 
Jersey formed an important ingredient of the material that propelled the 
revolution. The interior of New Jersey, which became so prominent in the 
subsequent military struggle, was colonised by Baptists and Presbyterians, 
who had fled from tests and persecutions to a place of security where they 
could enjoy their opinions and practice unmolested their own modes of relig- 
ious worship. New- York was a conquered colony, and from this circumstance 
its development was different from the others. The English there were a 
ruling class, inferior in numbers to the Dutch, and more aristorcratic in their 
pretentions, manners and love of control. The principal English families, or, 
as they called themselves, " people of figure," were a provincial and govern- 
ing aristocracy, in which the Dutch element was represented to a limited 
extent by such of the desceudents of the Dutch as had intermarried in these 
famiUes, or had acquired fortunes in commerce, or were influential through 
the possession of land. The Dutch throughout the history of the colony 
were slow to mingle with the dominant English until after the Revolution, 
which" placed a Dutch Prince upon the throne of England as WiUiam III. 
They were industrious, persevering, and frugal ; content, if let alone, to leave 
the government in the hands of the race that had acquired the colony by con- 
quest, but at the same time deeply imbued with the repubUcan sentiments 
and jealous love of liberty they had derived from their ancestors in Holland. 
Slow as they were to move, the attempt of one of their number, Leisler, to 
overthrow the aristocratic party and organize a government upon the basis of 
civil and religious hberty, had their fuUest sympathy : a sympathy which was 
intensified by his death upon a scaffold. They were largely represented in the 
city of New-York, where there was also, when the differences with Great 
Britain began, a smaU, but highly influential body, the descendents of thct 
Hugeonots who had settled there. From the character of the majority of iU 
population therefore, and the injurious effects of the British Colonial acts up- 
on its commerce and industrial interests, the city of New-York was from the 
outset, warm in the popular cause. But that city was also the home of some 
of the most devoted adherents of the British crown. Many wealthy and in- 



fluential familieH rasidod there wlioso aristocratic fedings had crystalized into 
a loyalty, which no considerations of personal interests and no act of the 
British Government could in the slightest degree ijnpair. This class which 
was even more largely represented in the other parts of the colony, exercised 
through family associations and other means, an influence so powerful as to 
constantly check and embarass the poiMilar movement, and New- York wf.s the 
last of the colonies to give in its adhesion to the cause of independence. 

The States of North and South Carolina, the former, the planting ground 
of the wild and philosophic lialeigh, were early imbued with the sjjirit of co- 
onial independence. The elaborate constitution drawn up for their govern- 
ment by Locke, the philosopher, which, to satisfy the ambition of Shaftes- 
bury, was devised for the purpose of pei-petuating an hereditary aristocracy 
. by parcelHng out the government into landed proprietaries, fell harmlessly 
upon a people who, from the practical working of a government which had 
grown out of their wants and necessities, smiled at the theoretical iJi-oduction 
of the English philosopher. 

The revocation of the edict of Nantes and the cruel persecutions that follow- 
ed it, drove the French protestants from the peaceful valleys of Languedoc 
to seek a home, personal security, and the rights of conscience in the unfet- 
tered wilds of North America. The bitter persecutions that drained France of 
some of the bravest and best of her sons, gave to the State of South Carolina 
a host of intelligent, virtuous, and independent settlers, who, engrafting their 
principles upon the soil they adopted, gave to the colony a well temiiered love 
of freedom that was prompt at the call of the revolution. 

The colony of Georgia was founded for an object very different from any 
of the motives which led to the settlement of the other colonies. It was to 
carry out a philanthropic experiment which had been earnestly advocated by 
several European j^hilanthropists, the removal of inmates of jails to a region 
where they could commence life anew and, imcontaminated by the influence 
of former associations, devote themselves to industrial pursuits and lead a 
moral life, having no inducement to lead any other. The founder of Georgia, 
Gen. Oglethorpe, was deeply impressed with the importance of this measure, 
and devoted himself earnestly to carrying it out, but from many causes, but 
little m this respect, was accomplished. A far more important feature in his 
scheme was to estabUsh in Georgia a place of refuge for the persecuted prot- 
estants of Germany, which brought there the Moravians and Lutherians, 
whose influence was felt in the early settlement, and the colony being after- 
ward augmented by Scotch and other settlers, and being left to its own devel- 
opment gradually passed into an upright and self-reliant community, which in 
its public Svnitimeut. progress and institutions, very much resemble! the other 
colonies. 

The example of natural democracy presented in the government of the abor- 
iginal tribes they supplanted, was an instructive lesson to the colonists, if they 
had derived nothing from other sources, in perfecting the principles of Re- 
pablicanism. Though the Indian tribes were characterized by that rude 



8 

ferocity incident to savage life, Rtill their government was a natural one, and 
possessed the quality of developing then* jjowers, however directed, to the ful- 
lest extent. Exclusively devoted to the rude pursuits of war and hunting, 
they selected for their chiefs or leaders the individuals who excelled in these 
pursuits, and thus by rendering the reward of merit certain, they were sure of 
effectually developing whatever powers they possessed. In many things 
affecting the government of the community, the women had an influence. 
In some of the tribes they had a controlling one in the question of war, and 
the Indian Council where the whole people assembled to deliberate and 
precedence was given to age and experience, was in itself a model of wisdom. 
In the more southern latitudes of Mexico and South America, the effeminate 
aborigines sunk into monarchies and were governed by Incas or Kings, but 
the fierce, free and hardy trilies of North America allowed no superiority 
not based upon merit, and coufen-ed no power that was not exercised for the 
general benefit. 

I have thus rai^idly sketched the causes which led to the settlement of each 
colony, the circumstances under which it was developed, and the institutions, 
interests, and sentiments that grew up in it as a consequence. When these 
are properly weighed it will be seen that the American revolution was different 
fi-om any other event in history. 

It was not the act of a people suddenly awakening from the bondage of ages 
and throiigh blood and slaughter claiming their rights, but the fixed and set- 
tled resistance of a people long accustomed to their exercise, and who had res- 
olutely determined never to surrender them. 

It was an act dehberately conceived, dehberately begun, and deliberately 
executed. A war less to estabhsh freedom than to preserve it ; a bold and 
successful assertion of pohtical rights, that fiUed monarchs with alarm and 
shook the stability of thrones. 

The very outset of the revolution was marked by that deliberative dignity 
that characterized its progress from its beginning to its close. Though the 
massacre of Lexington stirred up the minds of the colonists to the highest pitch 
of indignant resistance, they never in the warm ebullition of excitement-for- • 
got the great principles involved. 

Solemnly impressed with the righteousness of their cause, and desirous of 
removing from it the brand of rebellion, their first great general act was to 
put forth that broad declaration of rights and grievances, the promulgation of 
which we are this day assembled to commemorate. This dignified exiaosition 
of wrongs and principles comprehensively reveals the great motive of the 
struggle, and would alone, if every other record should perish, tell the tale in 
history. The colonists foresaw, with intuitive wisdom, that an effort to cast 
off a government, the authority of which was in accordance with the well set- 
tled usages of nations, required some explanation in the eyes of the world, to 
distinguish it from a factious revolt against constituted authority. 

Emanating from such motives and put forth imder such circumstances, 
the American Declaration of Independence was one of the most dignified and 



deliberate acts recorded in tho history of nations. Kingdoms have been over- 
thrown, States revokUionized, and Dynasties destroyed from time immemorial, 
but in no instance before had the great j^hysical eflFort been preceded l)y a 
written declaration of rights, grievances, and causes, proceeding from the reji- 
rescntative wisdom of the revolting parties in solemn council assembled. 
The several States of the Netherlands in 157'J entered into the compact against 
Philip II, known as the Union of Utrecht, and at the assembling of the States 
General at Antwerp in 1580, they formally renounced the sovereignty of Spain 
and declared the united provinces of the Netherlands to be thereafter a free 
and independent State. But this was after a bloody struggle of more than ten 
years' duration, when they had successfully resisted the whole military power 
of Spain, and had by the defeat of the Spanish armies that had been sent 
against them, practically established their independence. But the American 
declaration was put forth before the colonists had tried their strength, or had 
any means of judging whether they would be able or not to cope with the 
military power of Great Britain. The skirmish at Lexington and the stubborn 
resistance at Bunker Hill, was an encouraging evidence of the spirit of the 
people, and served to impress upon every colony that nothing remained but 
subjection or armed resistance. But it was resistance against what was then 
the greatest military power in the world ; a nation which claimed the mastery 
of the seas, that dictated terms in the councils of Eurojje, and which had just 
established its sway over Bengal, leaving the subjugated people of that large 
and fertile region of the globe, a prey to military despots and plundering na- 
bobs. What the effect would be of an armed struggle with such a power 
might lead the bravest people and the most sagacious statesmen to hesitate, 
especially in view of the well known historical fact that no government had 
up to that time, been more energetic in the conquest, or more summary in the 
punishment of those who revolted against its authority. 

There was not only this considei-ation, but the government in the dispute 
ith the colonies had never yielded an inch ; for although the stamp act was 
b'epealed in 17GG, the repeal was accompanied by a declaratory act asserting 
jthe supreme power of Parliment over the colonies "in all cases whatsoever." 
•^Resistance had produced only additionel exactions, and there was the most un- 
mistakeable indication, not only of the government's determination to enforce 
its authority, but also that it looked with a feeling of contempt at the pre- 
tence of military resistance on the part of the colonies. It is in view of this 
state of things that makes it so remarkable that the delegates of the respective 
lolonies assembled in congress at Philadelphia, shoidd with such unanimity, 
gravity and decision, put forth this declaration to the world, and then deliber- 
ately proceed to organize a distinct and independent government. 

That patriotic body was fuUy impressed by all the considerations which I 
have mentioned. The majority of its members, however, were convinced, and 
the conviction entert.ained by that majority was very general among the peo- 
jile, that the attempt of Great Britain to subjugate the colonies, by militr,ry 
force, was simply impossible. But there were many members of the body, 



t 



10 

thoughtful, earnest, and patriotic men, who had grave doubts upon that sub- 
ject; who were of the opinion that the time had not yet come for taking so 
decided a step, and who thought it would be more prudent to wait until there 
was some means of judging what it might be in the power of the colonics to ac- 
complish by armed resistance. On the other hand it was urged that the Con- 
tinental army was already in the field, and that if they achieved successes, the 
full effect of them would not be felt, as the colonies would stiU be regarded by 
the world as in rebellion ; whereas, if they deliberately declared themselves a 
free and independent nation, every success achieved would be a success of the 
nation, and a step towards its final estabUshment. Still, when the decisive 
day arrived, the 2d of July, for taking the vote upon the resolution, the result 
was doubtful. Only seven of the thirteen colonies had instructed their dele- 
gates to vote for it. The delegates of five of the other colonies were author- 
ized to act as they thought best, and the delegates of the remaining colony, 
(New- York), were not author ized to take any action whatever. "When the 
resolution came up, speeches were made for and against it. But before the 
preUminarj' vote was taken in the Committee of the whole, the remarkable 
words uttered by one man, from his sacred calling, the great weight of his 
character, and the effect which his personal presence prodiiced upon every 
body he addressed, appears to have confirmed the hesitating. This was Dr 
John Witherspoon, the President of Princeton College, a Scotch Presbyterian 
divine, whose male ancestors for two hundred years had been ministers of the 
gospel, and who, by his mother's side, was a lineal descendant of John Knox. 

The words were these: "That noble instrument on your table should be 
subscribed this very morning by everj^ pen in this house. He that will not 
respond to its accents, and strain every nerve to carry into effect its provisions, 
is unworthy the name of freeman. For my own part, of property I have 
some, of rejiutation I have more. That reputation is staked, that property is 
pledged on the issue of this contest. And although these gray hairs must soon 
descend into the sepulchre, I would infinitely rather they should descend 
thither by the hands of the public executioner, than desert, at this crisis, the 
sacred cause of my country." The vote was taken, and nine colonies repMed 
in the affirmative. This was looked upon as decisive, and when the Commit- 
tee of the whole rose, and the final vote was then taken, with the President, 
John Hancock, in the chair, twelve colonies answered in the affinnative, 
and the Nation was bom. 

To the Sovereign, to the governing classes, and to the Parliment, no task 
s:emed to be easier than to bring the colonies to subjection. It was looktd 
ujion at the outset as a disaffection that would disappear at the mere presence 
of a sufficient military force. In the opinion of the King and his ministers, 
four regiments would be sufficient to bring the colonies to obedience. The 
prospect of prolonged resistance, much less of eventual indci^endence, was 
never dreamed of, and when they found their disciplined armies gradually dis- 
appearing before the indomitable spirit of colonial resistance ; their sagacity 
outmatched by colonial statesmen, their boasted superiority humbbd by thore 



11 

they had despised, it was difficult to realize it, — difficult even to believe it. 
Year after year their exchequer was drained and their troops poured forth, but 
the buoyant sjMrit of the colonists arose as elastic as ever. The government 
not only sent the flower of their army to America, but resorted to the em- 
ployment of foreign mercenaries and Ijrought the Indians to their aid, yet 
with all this efl'ort Great Britain found it imi^ossible to overthrow a people 
auimated by principles to which she was herself indebted for her own supe- 
riority, and after fruitlessly laboring for seven years to accomplish it, she awoke 
to the conciousness of her folly, with a treasury exhausted, her prestige ini- 
I)aired and a continent lost. 

That this would be the result was apparent to a few leading minds in Great 
Britain, such as Chatham, Camden, Barre, and some others, but they were 
few in number, and wholly without influence. Lord Chatham in opposing a 
policy that he could not prevent, predicted the impossibility of conquering 
America and the philosophic Lord Kames ten years before the outbreak that 
resulted in Independence, foresaw the future destiny of the American States 
In a treatise that he has left, entitled the "History of Man," published in 
17(5r), he predicted, in the following remarkable passage, not only the eventual 
independence of the Colonies, but what is much more remarkable their after 
form of government. 

" Our North American colonies," he says, "are in a prosperous condition, 
increasing rapidiy in population and in opulence. The Colonists have the 
spirit of a free people and are inflamed with patriotism. Their population 
will equal that of Great Britain and Ireland in less than a century, and they 
will then be a match for the mother coimtry if they chose to be independent. 
Every advantage wiU be on their side as the attack must be by sea from a very 
great distance. "When delivered from a foreign yoke their first care will be in 
the choice of a government, and it is not difficult to foresee what that govern- 
ment wiU be. A people annimated with the new blessings of liberty and inde- 
pendence will not incline to a kingly government. We may pronounce with 
assurance that each colony will choose for itself a Republican Government. 
Their present constitution prepares thein for it ; they have a Senate and they 
have an Assembly representing the peojile. No change will be necessary ; 
they will have but to drop the Governor who represents the King of Great 
Britain and their system is complete. " 

In conversing with Mr. Bancroft, the distinguished historian, respecting this 
remarkable prediction, he said it would be extraordinary that a judge hving 
in Edinburgh, and who had never been in the Colonies, should make such 
a prediction, but for a fact which he happened to know from some papers 
and correspondence that had come into his hands ; which was that Lord 
Kumes was acquainted with Franklin ; that they met in London before the 
publication of this book and saw a great deal of each other. This will account 
for the knowledge which this prediction exhibited of the real condition of 
things in America ; whilst at the same time it shows the penetration and pro- 
foundness of Lord Kames, in deducing a conclusion from the information 



12 

of Franklin, which at the time must have been regarded by most of his con- 
temporaries as an idle speculation. 

The persistency of the ministry, the parliament and all who approved of the 
measures that produced the revolution, as well as the dogged determination 
with which the military struggle was kept up for so many years with such 
adverse results, is now known to have been chiefly owing to the personal in- 
fluence and wiU of the King. The writer of a recent paper in an English 
review, supposed to be Mr. Gladstone, has pointed out to what extent it is in 
the power of an English sovereign to control the administration of the affairs of 
the nation, if he is disposed to devote himself to the public business and go 
through the labor that is requisite. George III. had this disi^osition in as 
great a degree as any English monarch, at a time when it was easier than 
it is now to make the government, the government of a single man, and what 
rendered the exercise of such a power in his case especially unfortunate was, 
that whilst he was of very Umited understanding, he was at the same time 
conscientious ; believing that what he did was not only his right, but his 
duty. He took all appointments into his own hands ; controlled parhament 
by a system of bribery and corruption which, he managed himself, and was 
content with no ministry that did not carry out his views and yield to him in 
every thing. The strange spectacle was presented amongst a people so jealous 
of their rights as the Eughsh, of a monarch, who by his misjudged foreign 
and colonial policy, brought the nation nearly to the brink of ruin, and who 
yet was popular with the people, through his domestic virtues and their belie", 
which was well founded, in his sincerity. The colonists understood him 
thoroughly. They knew him to be nan-ow-minded and strong-willed. A 
man indifferent to, because incapable of aj^preciating the value of constitu- 
tional rights and whose idea of government was one carried on by himself. 
He was, in fact, the government, and they knew it. They felt that he was 
the source of the difficulties that had arisen between them and the mother 
country, and the obstacle to any removal of them, and hence, in the Declara- 
tion of Independence, it is not the Enghsh nation, nor the English people who 
are arraigned; but "the present King of Great Britain." It is his "history" 
which, it is declared, "is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations," 
Each of the twenty-nine counts in the gi-eat indictment that follows, begin 
with the words : "He has," &c., and their emmieration closes by describing 
him as "A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may de- 
fine a tyrant." They refer to their British brethren as having been conjured 
by all the ties of a common kindred to disavow his usurpations ; but as being 
deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity ; a long passage in the original 
draft of the declaration referring in harsher terms to the British people and re- 
nouncing them as "unfeeling brethren," having been struck out in the com- 
mittee. When he read this declaration and saw the hght in which he was pre- 
sented he was no doubt greatly exasijerated, and they meant that he should be. 

That a milder policy on the part of Great Britain would have deferred the 
Independence of the colonies to a futiire period is certainly probable, but the 



13 

colonists were too iiccnrntclj^ acquainted with the advantages of a separation 
not eventually to desire and to demand it. Their remote position, their 
natural advantages and the importance of developing theii- resources uncon- 
trolled, could not but in time forcibly arrest the attention of a peoi^le so bold, 
so shrewd and so enterprising. The impossibility of a British Legislature 
regulating the vast internal affairs of the colonies was apparent and was very 
fehcitously put in January 177t;, )jy one of the most forcible of the revolution- 
ary writers : 

"The business of this continent is too weighty," he says, "to be managed 
with any tolerable degree of convenience by a power so distant from us and so 
very ignorant of us, for if they cannot conquer us they cannot govern us. To 
be always running three or four thousand miles with a tale or a petition, wait- 
ing four or five months for an answer, which when obtained, requires five or 
six more to explain it in, will, in a few years, be looked upon as folly and child- 
ishness ; there was a time when it was jjroper and there is a jiroper time for it 
to cease." "Small Islands," he continues, "not capable of protecting them- 
selves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care, but there 
is something absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by 
an Island. In no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than the pri- 
mary planet and as England and America, with respect to each other reverse 
the common order of nature, it is evident that they belong to different sys- 
tems, England to Europe, America to itself." 

The success of the American Revolution was due, amongst other causes to 
the distance of the Colonies from Great Britain ; to the great extent of country 
over which it was necessary to carry on offensive miltary operations ; to the 
aid given by France at a critical period and to the clearness with which the peo- 
ple understood, and the earnestness in which they believed in the political 
principles involved ; for, as was long ago observed by Webster and others 
there was little positive oppression. It was the assumption of the authority 
and control over them claimed by Great Britain, after the Colonies by their 
own efforts had become wealthy and important, that they resisted from a clear 
perception of what the future consequences would be if the acts of the colonial 
Legislatures in the management of their local affairs, were to be subject to a 
parliament in England, which might disregard them, overrule them, or repeal 
them, without the colonies having any voice or representation in this imperial 
Legislature ; a body that assumed the right to govern them in respect to any 
thing connected with their local interests or in any way it thought proper no 
matter how disastrous to them or ruinous to their interests, the poUcy, or course 
of that parhament might be. In a word, the colonists claimed that they had 
not by founding an English colony, lost their rights as English subjects and 
that one of the most important of these rights was the right of representation. 
They demanded that either their Legislatures should be let alone in all matters 
pertaining to the interest of a colony, or if all their measures or laws were to be 
subject to the consent of the British parliment, then they insisted that each 
colony or the colonies collectively had a right to a proportionate representa- 



14 

tion in that body. What the English parliament claimed and by the passage 
of the stamp act exercised, was the power of imposing an internal tax upon 
them to cover their proportionate part of the expense of the French and In- 
dian war, England having by that and the seven years' war incin-red a debt of 
one himdred and forty millions. The colonists did not question their obliga- 
tion to bear their part of the cost of a war, waged chiefly for their benefit. 
What they insisted upon was that if it were to be raised in the colonies by tax- 
tion, it should be imposed by their Legislatures, where the people of the colo- 
nies were represented ; upon a fundamental principle of the British Constitution, 
that taxation and representation went together, and they expressed their er- 
tire willingness to raise their proportion of the debt, by laws enacted by their 
own Legislatures. They conceeded that the right to regulate commerce was 
in the general parliament of the mother country. They submitted, therefore, 
to the imposition of imiiort duties at colonial ports, and when this right of 
regulating commerce was harshly exercised, by confining the colonial trade 
to British ports, they did not deny its legality, but met its injustice by what 
was equally legal, a general pledge to Tise no British manufactures. It was not 
only, therefore, the clearness with which the question in dispute was compre- 
hended, but the extent to which a knowledge of the true nature and object of 
government was diffused amongst the people, that accounts for the una- 
manity which existed amongst all classes, and the union of opinion which pre- 
vailed between those who were entrusted with the management of the affairs 
of each colony. 

The extent to which the public mind was informed in respect to government, 
its just Hmits and approjiriate sphere, was thus one of the most remarkable 
features of the revolution and distinuishes it from every previous effort of any 
people involved in a like contest ; surpassing in this respect even the intelli- 
gent struggle of the people of the Netherlands. This was due in part to the 
circumstances I have referred to in the founding, settlement, and progress of 
each colony, and in part to the number of remarkable public documents and 
other writings, that appeared during the twelve years that proceeded the revo- 
lution. They were the product of many minds, but in my judgment pre-eminent 
over all others in their effect, were the writings of Samuel Adams, generally em- 
bodied in the form of public documents, which were widely disseminated and 
eagerly read. They furnished the material that suj^phed ideas to leading men 
and to the various assemblies of delegates convened in the different colonies. 
This njan, though holding the comparatively subordinate position of clerk of 
the Massachusetts Legislature was the one who may be said to have forged the 
intellectual thunderbolts of the revolution, for the ideas to which he gave birth 
found their way into many a resolve of a colonial assembly and may be said to 
pervade nearly every part of the Declaration of Independence. Samuel Adams 
had studied the subject of government more profoundly than any other man 
in America. He had a sharp, incisive New England intellect, that penetrated 
to the very root of things and in the use of language, he wrote with a plain- 
ness, simplicity and force, that conveyed the idea that he wished to expres-s 



15 

directly to the popular mind. Another reniarkiihle writer Hupjjlied what was 
wanted when the moment for action arrived. Upon the suggestion of three 
men, Saml. Adams, Dr. Franklin and Dr. Knsh, Thomas Paine, in January 
177(>, wrote that remarkable pamphlet, divided mto four parts, to which he 
gave the title of Common Sense. This in a popular form presented the whole 
question between the colonies and Great Britain, with the greatest perspic- 
uity, and by the most persuasive and convincing reasoning showed that there 
was nothing left for them but to seperate from Great Britain and establish 
an independent government. It is impossible at this day fully to appreciate 
the effect which this pamphlet produced. Dr. Kush says that "it burst 
from the press with an [, effect that has rarely been produced by types and 
paper in any age or countiy," and Eamsay in his history of the American 
llevohition declares that it was read by and convinced thousands who had 
never before thoiight of separation. In the opening page of this pamphlet 
Paine exclaims : 

" Now is the seed time of Continental Union, faith and honor. The least 
fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin vijjon the 
tender rind of a young oak : the wound will enlarge with the tree and posterity 
read it in full grown characters." The name engraved that year upon the 
young sapling of independence, was The United States, population, Three 
Millions. The name ujion the sturdy oak of to-day is The United States, popu 
lation, Thirty-Eight Millions. 

I have limited my address to the causes of the Revolution and the political 
questions upon which it turned ; but I cannot close it without a jjarting word 
about the soldiers by whom it was successfully carried through. Those who 
measure military achievements by the magnitude of military oi:)erations, or the 
skill displayed in the management of great armies in their contests with each 
other, will find miich in the records of offensive and defensive warfare to out- 
vie the exploits of the revolution. But in th-e exhibition of the qualities 
which elevate the soldier from a mercenary dealer in war and bloodshed, to the 
unpurchased defender of the rights and liberties of his country, there is not 
to be found in the history of mankind a nobler example than was displayed 
by the men who fought the battles of the revolution. It presented the rare 
military spectacle of a people with no other experience than such as the French 
and Indian war had afforded, going suddenly forth from the quiet pursuits of 
civil life — from the work-bench, the study, and the plough; submissively 
yielding to the restraints of military discipline ; accepting with little complaint 
the trials incident to campaigns of peculiar hardship, from the nature of 
the country and the highly disciplined forces with which they had to contend, 
and who throughout, were poorly clothed, imperfectly armed, indifferently fed, 
and still more iuchflerently paid, or who served without any jjay at all. Sold- 
iers returning when the opportunity offered, to their fields to look after their 
famines and domestic interests, but reappearing again and resuming their ser- 
vice, when an advance of the enemy or other contingency recpiired an aug- 
menting of the continental forces. Doing this during a war of seven years' 



16 

duration, and, when the object for which it was waged was accomplished, 
quietly disbanding, sinking again into the bosom of society, and losing the 
character of the soldier and the hero in those quiet pursuits they had original- 
ly left at the call of their country. In many other revolutions the soldiers by 
whom they were achieved became afterward ready instruments for elevating 
to power the niilitary leader by whom they were commanded, and surrendered 
up the State to his amblitious designs, and puri^oses. But at the close of 
the American revolution, the leader and the private jjassed at once into the 
ordnary ranks of society, with no other distinction except the grateful recog- 
nition of their services by their fellow citizens, and the silent homage paid to 
them during life, for having fought in the revolution. 

This was something more than mere military glory. But if the sterner 
deeds of battle move you ; if your blood is stirred by the deep resolve, the 
iron will, and the unyielding spirit displayed in deeds that rival aught that has 
been heard in mythic tale or classic story — if you love to contemplate the 
energy that springs spontaneously from the human soul and inspires us to de- 
fend the land we were bom in — go read it in the tale of the yeoman who de- 
fended the redoubt upon the heights of Bunker Hill, or the "Hunting Shirts," 
who fought upon the plains of Saratoga ! 

The present generation has seen this spectacle of the rising of the people, 
and their peaceful retirement when the contest was over, in the war for the 
establishment of the Union, repeated in another war of greater magnitude for 
the preservation of the Union. We have lived to see this contest settled by 
that last arbitrament, the appeal to arms ; to see the North triumphant in the 
vindication of the cause of the whole country; to see the South acquiescing and 
finally admitting its necessity — and when the centennials rolled around that 
brought back the recollection of the events and the scenes of the revolution, 
and the people of Boston were assembled on the 17th of last June to com- 
memorate, after a hundred years had elapsed, the struggle that took place upon 
that day ; we have seen a distinguished Southern General, Fitzhugh Lee, 
accompanied by others who had fought for the separation of the South, come 
to that hill, which is the Mecca of the American revolution, with these words 
upon his lips: " "We feel that we too have a right to be here," words that 
acquire their deep significance in the fact thet he stood there the representa- 
tive, in name and blood, of that Lee, who, in the State House of Philadelphia, 
moved the resolution for the Declaration of Independence. 

And as if nothing should be wanting to give tone and effect to this new 
picture of national union, we have had also the fact that a military company 
came the long distance from Charleston, in South Carolina^that city which 
was the birthplace of nullification and the cradle of secession — to Boston, 
that city which, by the South, was the one the most execrated, and that this 
company was received by the people in the streets, from the jDlatforms, and 
from the windows of the houses, with tumultuous, reiterated, and long con- 
tinued shouts of welcome, as it marched in procession to Bunker Hill. And 
lastly, we have had the effect which this warm welcome produced in the South, 



17 

with a statement of which, from a Southern newspaper, the CJiarleston NewH, 
I will close my address. " The Southern visitors," says the editor of that 
paper, "went to Boston in a representative capacity, and in that cajiacity they 
were received. Every kind word uttered to them was intended to reach the 
ears of those who were at home. There in Boston, face to face with the 
memories of days when the only strife between the States was who should 
do the most for the republic, the North or the South, put away all the bitter 
feelings of the days when the States were arrayed in battle against each other. 
Will the new friendship of June 1 7th pass away like these ? No ! it will not. 
The South has learned to look at the government of the United States as her 
government — to the United States flag as her flag, and understands that her 
grievances must and can only be remedied by peaceful and constitutional 
means. The North has learned to respect the South and the South the 
North. This could not have happened at an earher period. It needed such 
a gathering as the commemoration of Bunker Hill to make soldiers and citi- 
zens feel that without respect there could be no confidence, jjeace or reconcili- 
ation. That the union which now both desire, could not be had whilst the 
North looked down upon the South, or the South was expected to bow in sub- 
mission to the North," and the editor concludes with what will receive a 
hearty response throughout the length and breadth of the land, which is, that 
from Maine to the Carolinas, from the Gulf of Mexico to the farthest limit of 
o.ir western States, we all now stand on the Bunker Hill platform — "One flag, 
one Country, and one Destiny." 




WHAT PRODUCED THE AMERICAN REVOLUTII).\'. 



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PUBLISHED BY PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR. 



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1875. 



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